


the nightmare life-in-death was she

by ScatteredWords



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Gen, Post Season 3, Season 3 Spoilers, Spoilers, no vampires? yes problem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 08:44:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8279827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScatteredWords/pseuds/ScatteredWords
Summary: "You were made mortal, pet. Not human." Carmilla discovers that her happy ending isn't all it seems. [Was anyone else deeply disappointed with that particular part of the s3 finale? Yes? Then read on.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Saw the finale, got irritated, banged this out at 3 AM. My personal headcanon and the only way I will accept this whole "Carm is mortal now" thing.

_Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum._

In the darkness-that-wasn’t-dark, the sound echoed in Carmilla’s ears. It seemed louder than anything she’d ever heard, too loud for something so steady and sluggish. The thumps lagged, lazier than her on a Saturday afternoon, but they were real.

Her heartbeat. She had a heartbeat.

Plastic stars glowed green from the ceiling, and she smiled. Laura’d put them there for her. “So you can always sleep under the stars,” she’d said as she descended the stepladder. Carmilla had pulled her close, grinning against her lips. The tiny body warming the sheets beside her meant all of this was real- her and Laura, who’d hung the stars. Her and Laura, breathing together in a small perfect miracle.

And yet the darkness wasn’t dark.

Carmilla sat up, frowning. She’d been frowning since she collapsed, spent, beside Laura. That sort of pleasant, floaty sensation was normal after sex, and she’d expected it to shift easily into exhaustion and sleep now that she was mortal.

“Mortal,” she muttered aloud. “Mortal.” Mortality, memento mori. Able to die. That should have been self-explanatory, but something felt off.

Behind her someone clapped, and she almost jumped out of bed. Slow, steady applause that sounded all too familiar.

“Mattie.”

“Brava, little sister,” came the achingly familiar silken voice. Carmilla slid carefully out of bed and turned around. Sure enough, a vision in Prada now stood next to the sink with one hand behind her back, examining Laura’s toothbrush.

“I was hoping you’d work it out soon. Being hauled away from the most divine sample sale by a death goddess isn’t my idea of a good time.”

“You’re-” For once, the right words wouldn’t come. “-here,” Carmilla finished at last. “And distinctly corporeal.”

Mattie shrugged elegantly. “I earned my rest. My rest being a much-needed vacation and a few sips of a promising young swimsuit model. Which, by the way, you could probably use yourself.” She glided closer to Carmilla and revealed a wine glass in her left hand, half-full of thick crimson liquid. 

“Come on, darling. I promise the lass still lives.”

A faint iron tang wafted through the air as she casually swirled the blood like a wine connoisseuse. Saliva pooled in Carmilla’s mouth, and almost before she realized it, she’d grabbed the glass and downed its contents. A moment later, the glass slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor.

“What. Is going. On,” she ground out, staring at her sister in disbelief.

“You were made mortal, pet,” Mattie said calmly. “Not human.”

Carmilla gripped the nearby desk chair for support. Wood splintered under her fingers. Her voice shook with rage. “Do elaborate, if you’d be so kind.”

“Even a god can only do so much,” Mattie replied, running a finger along the edge of the radiator cover. “Do you really think a human body could hold three centuries of memories? You died. You weren’t passed gracefully from life to your current state. Making you human now would make you dead- more than dead, a desiccated corpse. Restoring a heartbeat is easy. Any broken machine can be made to work again. Restoring humanity is impossible.”

“Then what am I?” It was half-whispered, barely more than an undertone, but Mattie heard nonetheless.

“Something unequalled in all the world,” she said with a smile. “A vampire that lives. The mortal undead.” One hand reached up to caress Carmilla’s cheek, lifting her chin gently so she looked Mattie in the eye. “You are unique, my dear.”

No smile answered Mattie’s. “Why?” Carmilla demanded through gritted teeth. “Why change me at all, then?”

In lieu of an answer, Mattie guided her chin and thus her gaze to the left, to the bed- to Laura. The small form cocooned in the blankets stirred, mumbled something into her yellow replacement pillow, and fell silent again.

“The liar’s heart beats for both of you now,” Mattie whispered. “As long as it beats, so shall yours, and I think you’ll find it beats a very long time. Not a day without her will you live. What lover could ask for more? You will never have to bear a world without her again, since you were willing to avoid it by any means necessary. This is the gods’ gift to you.”

Carmilla let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She pulled free of Mattie’s grip and looked back at her sister.

“I need to breathe. Can I be killed as humans can? Can silver still burn me, and symbols humans trust? I’m still as strong, and as fast, and clearly still nocturnal and hemophagic. Will Laura-”

“So many questions,” Mattie cut her off with a laugh, “and so few hours Bergdorf-Goodman is open. We’ll be in touch. A bientot, kitty.” And in the customary puff of black smoke, she was gone.

The pressure building up in Carmilla’s mind threatened to burst, and the corners of her eyes prickled dangerously. Every time some tenuous certainty crept into her life, it was ripped away. Everything she tried to hold onto for support melted in her grasp. It all fell apart.

A creak from the bed forced her out of her thoughts. She turned to see Laura sitting up under the blankets, eyes wide as dinner plates.  
“Carm, was…was Mattie here?” she asked in hushed tones.

“Yeah.” Carmilla raked a hand through her hair. “Yeah, she wanted to- ah –explain some things. Or just cryptically half-explain and leave me with more questions than before, since that seems to be her latest M.O.”

“What happened?” Laura’s eyes found the shattered wineglass, the dark stain on the carpet. “Is that blood?”

Slowly, Carmilla crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes. There’s something we need to talk about, Cupcake.”

Whatever this brave new future held, at least they were facing it together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LaF is trying; really they are.

“I’ll live in a bubble.”

After listening to Carmilla’s story in total silence, Laura finally spoke. Her eyes remained fixed on the floral sheets clenched in her hand and she nodded slowly.

“I’ll carry bear spray everywhere. I’ll let my dad put me in that Hazmat suit again. I’ll eat nothing but kale and green juice and- and- and organically sourced local sweetbreads. I’ll never walk up stairs in an old building because those staircases were total death traps, and I’ll-”

“Laura.” Carmilla grabbed her hands and looked her in the eye. “No. You’ll live your life normally, the same mad, reckless way you always have.”

“But if I die…” Laura trailed off, unable to make the words come out.

“I’ll die too,” Carmilla finished. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. But that’s alright.”

Laura blinked, eyes starting to water a bit. “No. No, it’s not; Carm- I can’t imagine a world without you. I don’t want that to ever happen.”

“And what was the alternative? Eighty years, now? Sixty? Nothing to the time I’ve already lived. The blink of an eye with you and then I’d have to watch you fade away. Trust me, I wasn’t looking forward to laying flowers on your grave.” Gently, she rubbed the back of Laura’s hand with her thumb. “This way, I’ll never have to.”

“What if someone kills you?” Laura asked thickly. “Then I’ll be the one laying flowers.”

Carmilla shrugged. “That was always a risk before.”

Silence stretched between them. Laura’s breathing grew less ragged, and her heartbeat slowed. _My heartbeat. Our heartbeat,_ Carmilla thought, though her own pulse continued its usual languid rhythm. She remembered Laura’s lips on her neck, and the feeling of blood racing where it once stood still.

Laura spoke first. “So are you still a giant black cat?”

In spite of herself, Carmilla smiled. “Let’s find out.”  
\----------------------------------------------------

_**Trial 47: Subject still a giant black cat. Sometimes.** _

_Transformation seems unaffected. Subject reports shortness of breath immediately afterwards, but no other adverse effects. Continues to ignore blatant violation of the laws of physics re: conservation of matter. Further tests may be necessary._

“Further tests will not be necessary, Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Stop reading over my shoulder!” LaFontaine jerked their clipboard away from Carmilla’s line of sight. They set down their pen and lifted their goggles, shoving back the ginger locks that had flopped onto their forehead. The dean’s former apartment had become an imprompteau laboratory, with a full complement of flasks and chemical bottles now occupying a spindly Georgian table that groaned ominously under their weight. A treadmill in the corner stood idle for now, and sensors dangled from it like willow branches. LaF fiddled with the rubber bulb of a blood pressure cuff as they reread the notes scrawled on the page.

Weeks of amateur research had yielded a full Moleskine’s worth of information, and several pages of loose leaf. The basics could be condensed into several main points:

1\. Carmilla had a heartbeat, albeit one that moved much slower than a standard human pulse.  
2\. Carmilla had to breathe.  
3\. Carmilla’s strength, speed, agility, and senses remained at a level beyond human average (though LaF complained mightily about having no control data to compare their findings to).  
4\. Carmilla could, indeed turn into a giant black cat at will.  
5\. Sacred symbols, including holy water, still posed a threat.  
6\. Carmilla still had to drink blood.  
7\. Carmilla still healed at an accelerated rate, but she claimed it was slower than before.  
8\. Silver still burned her, but only sterling.

(The last, she insisted, was normal. “I can always tell when someone is using plate at a formal dinner,” she’d said wryly, nursing a burn on her hand where LaF had dragged one of Laura’s necklaces across it.)

“So basically,” LaF said, leaning back in the cushy desk chair they’d appropriated from the study, “you’re just…a vampire with a heartbeat.”

“Stunning observational skills, genius,” came the reply from behind a huge, leather-bound book with a title in what appeared to be Welsh. Carmilla turned a page without glancing up. “Next you’ll be telling me the sky is blue or water is wet or I’m going to die whenever Laura does.”

LaF rolled their eyes- the laser’s random misfires having finally stopped with their latest adjustment –and stalked over the couch. Tugging at the book proved unsuccessful; Carmilla’s hands simply tightened on it and proved the earlier test of her strength. Finally, they settled for plunking down on the sofa and staring at her intently. She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t take the bait.

“What does that mean, anyway?” Laura spun away from the bay window and began pacing across a sumptuous Oriental carpet. “You told me Mattie said something, something about me living a long time.”

“She said your heart would beat for a very long time, Cupcake,” Carmilla replied. “That doesn’t necessarily imply ‘alive.”

The pacing stopped as Laura stared at her girlfriend. “But…you are alive. You breathe. You bleed. I can feel your heart.”

Carmilla shrugged, finally setting the book aside (to a huffy sigh from LaFontaine). “Does that make me alive?” she said, and unfolded herself from her corner of the gold velvet sofa. “To hear Mattie talk, I’m a corpse with a pulse. I’m still held together by enough magic to choke Harry Potter.”

“And my heart,” Laura said quietly.

“And your heart.”

LaF also stood, rushing to stand between the two girls. “Okay, lovebirds. I’ve walked in on you enough to know where this is going. And we still have more tests to run. I’d like to take a skin scraping to look at cell turnover-”

But half their audience was staring at the other half slightly moonstruck, and said other half had reached out to stroke her cheek, and it soon became apparent that the mannequin legs on the Victorian walnut secretary were more likely to pay attention than the two no-longer-starcrossed lovers. LaF pinched the bridge of their nose.

“Seriously? We’re making metaphysical breakthroughs and you’re just going to stand around and suck face?”

A moment later, “…yep. Yeah, you are. How the hell did you two ever manage to save the world?”

They turned on their heel and stomped out of the room, but Laura and Carmilla were too lost in each other’s lips and hands to notice.


End file.
